The Age of Renewal
by acekemp
Summary: The battle of Ostagar was lost. The Warden failed to make it to the Circle of Magi in time, and Uldred attempted to slaughter the mages, and nearly succeeded. Through an accident, one mage tries to lead the survivors to rebuild what they lost, in a foreign world, dogged by the self interests of one old man, and political intrigue from outside and from within.
1. An Extreme Act

**Chapter 1 - An Extreme Act**

Before I begin recording the events that have led to our golden age, let me give some context into how the chain of time was altered beyond the recognition of everyone and everything that we knew. When the Uldred and Wynne returned from the battle of Ostagar, was arguably the time that things became disastrous, and yet, as it has turned out to be, miraculous. For if were not for this event, then we would not have led to the unprecedented freedom and transparency that we experience today. We start our story, at the point mentioned beforehand, during what we have come to know, as the Battle of the Tower.

Alyanna was just as scared as everybody else was. If everybody panicking was bad, the fact that everybody included templars and more senior mages was even worse. Demons and abominations had attacked through the bottom of the tower. Gregoir and Irving were interrogating Uldred and Wynne about the battle, trying to find out everything that they could, when Uldred turned into an abomination. Gregoir, Irving, and Wynne were killed almost instantly, sending the whole tower into a frenzy. Some of the apprentices that remained were being turned into abominations against their will, tortured into accepting. Alyanna turned when she heard the screaming of children from behind her. The few who remained were heading towards the ritual room at the top of the tower. It was an enclosed space, with only one entrance, and was the best chance of being able to destroy the abominations by funnelling them through the doors when they broke through. Some people had been clever enough to take things from the stockroom, and taking these things with them. As she saw the children, she also saw the rage demon that behind them. Taking a firm hold on her staff, she moved towards them. Rage demons appeared to take on fire-like qualities, and so, thinking about the cold, she cast her spell. Now, Alyanna was not a very powerful in the primal arts, and so, the spell did little more than slow the demon down. "Hurry, come on." She shouted to the children. They looked towards her, and moved quicker than she though children could. The demon looked at her, never stopping in it's movement.

"Ah, a powerful mage. I will have you." It said, in a deep voice. Alyanna would be foolish not to be frightened at that point. Although she had passed her Harrowing, she had not wanted a second experience with a demon this soon afterwards. She focused again, except this time, not on freezing the demon, but keeping it in place. She felt the magic leave her body, and the demon screamed. Looking up at it once more, she saw that her prison spell had worked.

"Release me, mage." It roared at her, its body being crushed by the pressure of the prison. Before she could answer, the body and spirit of the demon was crushed, and it withered away, the prison fading afterwards. Turning around once more, she continued running towards the room. As she moved up the steps, a templar waved her up.

"Quickly, we have to shut this door now." She drove herself to move faster, and managed to make through the door, and it was shut behind her.

Upon looking around the room, Alyanna did not see any red robes in the room. In fact, there were no yellow robes either, save for her own. Deciding she was likely the most senior mage, she decided to bring order to the room. She was starting to get a headache. "For the sake of the Maker, shut up!" She shouted, and everyone turned towards her. "Alright, this is what we're going to do. I want children on my right, older apprentices to the left of them, chantry sisters to the left of them, and templars on my extreme left."

"Who put you in charge?" A voice cried from the back, and she turned in the direction she believed it came from.

"Unfourtunatly, as the most senior mage, I feel it is my duty to maintain order, along with the most senior templar. So get a move on." Alyanna said calmly. The people started to move around, some reluctantly. She saw a templar heading towards her.

"I am Aiden. The most senior templar here." He said, extending his hand.

"Alyanna, acting first-enchanter, given the circumstances." She replied taking his hand. Aiden gave a short chuckle. "Excuse my inquiry, but why are you being so amiable? I would have thought you would all be for annulment." Alyanna asked, truly curious as to why the templars had not struck them down. They were hardly on friendly terms.

"It would seem counter-productive. We are surrounded by demons and abominations, and are small in number. Any mage who hasn't turned is truly a blessing at this point." He said, grimly. Aiden removed his helmet, revealing a withered man, possibly in his late fifties. "I am surprised by the human mages following an elven one, despite your higher rank."

"I am the only one here who has passed the Harrowing. I think I command respect purely for that reason alone. We had better do a head count, and then proceed to stock taking." She motioned her hand towards the assembled, and Aiden nodded.

Things were not looking good for them. They had twenty apprentices, and another fourteen children. On the templar front, things were not much better. There were only fifteen templars left, many had died attempting to fight the overwhelming numbers. There were then another four chantry sisters. The supplies they had were not in good shape either. A good number of them were in need of healing poultices. There was banging coming on the door to the ritual room. "Andraste preserve us, they are trying to break in." One templar said, and drew his sword. The rest followed suit.

"Children to the back by the supplies." She ordered, and the children quickly ran for the crates at the back of the room. "Apprentices stand with me. Aiden, try and the hold them within the door. We will throw everything we have at them. If we can't stop them, we will at least give Ferelden a fighting chance." Aiden nodded, and the templars formed together in a semi-circle in front of the door, when it burst open, and Uldred walked through. Magic flowed into the chamber, and everyone was thrown backwards towards the supplies.

"Come on now, we do not need to fight, Surely we can come to an agreement of some sort." He looked around at them.

"Yes, well some of us prefer to live in sanity, than in whatever world you live in Uldred." Alyanna said, pulling herself to her feet.

"Ah, the last leader of the resistance. I can sense great potential in you. Imagine it, that power inside you, amplified with the wisdom and control of a demon, You could be as powerful as me." At that though, as Uldred was looking at her with expectation, she let out a laugh.

"Don't tell me that's your recruitment speech. I've heard better persuasion coming from the Owain in the stockroom." Uldred glared at her.

"This is not the time for insulting me. Join me or die." Alyanna stared Uldred down. She bent down, and reached a hand behind her, picking up a lyrium potion up the crate behind her. She placed it on the ground in front of her, still kneeling. "You see, even you can be made to see reason." Uldred stated moving towards her.

"You are blinded by your own pride Uldred. You have already lost." She focused on the potion, and extended her hands towards it. To her surprise, she couldn't feel anything leaving her, but the potion started to brighten. It seemed to vibrate.

"Do you know what you are doing Alyanna?" Aiden asked, whispering.

"Not at all, but what else have we got." She whispered back. Uldred was oblivious to the whispering, but not to the unstable lyrium potion.

"Stop that, you will do us all." Uldred said, and threw magic towards them, intent on moving the lyrium potion away from his prize. It flew into the crate, and exploded with a bright light. The last thing the group heard in their own world was Uldred's irritated howls, as the light encompassed them, and they disappeared from the tower.


	2. A Violent Arrival

**Chapter 2 - A Violent Arrival**

The important thing to know about lyrium, is that despite its fairly common usage, the exact properties of it were not known. There had been many experiments regarding the qualities of the lyrium, but the majority of these were conducted by the dwarves, who usually kept such knowledge to themselves. The reason for the dwarves being the best scholars on the subject, links directly to their inability to use lyrium. There have been attempts by mages to try and find out the properties of lyrium for themselves. However, if any had been successful, none had reported it. Those who had failed, were usually found dead. As such, the survival of our group should have been impossible. Yet, they managed to survive.

When the light receded from the group, they found themselves in a completely different room. If Alyanna was to be honest, she wasn't sure if they were in the same building. It was certainly possible, that they were just in an area she hadn't seen yet, But, that meant she must have completely bypassed it in her two years as a full mage, and she didn't think that was feasible. So, they were somewhere unknown, with an unknown amount of danger. She looked around to observe the rest. At least they appeared to have everyone. "Is everyone alright?"

"Everyone who was alright before is alright now. But there are some still in need of healing." Aiden said to her, picking himself up. "Where are we?"

"No idea, but I have no intention of letting the others know that. We don't need another panic." Alyanna said, and Aiden nodded. "Get everyone up, we'll head through that door there." She pointed to a small door, the only one leading from the small room they had found themselves in. Aiden started moving around, getting everyone up who could walk. Aiden and four other templars managed to carry the four people who were the worse off amongst them. Alyanna looked down at the remains of her own staff, broken in her fall, or transportation, or whatever happened. "Alright everyone, let's move." She said, and headed towards the small door.

Albus Dumbledore was not in the greatest of moods. This was mainly because of the actions of that imbecilic minister Cornelius Fudge. He had never heard of a worse idea than placing dementors around a school. They were too uncontrollable in his view, and he had tried to have them removed from all human contact, but nobody wanted to use actual people to defend Azkaban. He was currently looking pensively at the Gryffindor table, and especially at one Harry Potter. He had two good friends in Granger and the young Weasley boy, but he had hoped that Granger would get him to raise his grades more. Nevertheless, he was doing well. He was everything that he hoped he would be, even if his relatives had treated him less than ideally. He had to remember to pay them a visit about how they had looked after him. He also wanted to protect him from Sirius Black. He didn't know how Black could have turned on James and Lily, but he had his money on Regulus being involved in some way. He had a slight shiver, and that annoyed him. Something had just travelled through the wards. He had a lot of that, as the dementors kept entering the grounds, instead of being at the entrances. He was slowly managing to ignore the warnings though. He couldn't allow it to distract from his duties. He stood to give the welcome announcements. "To our first years, welcome to Hogwarts. To the rest of you, welcome back. Please be aware, that the Forbidden..." That was as far as he got, when the door to the antechamber opened, and he spun around to see who had opened the door. He could not quite believe what he saw.

To say the large audience was a surprise to Alyanna was an understatement. She had not expected to see, what appeared to be a large dining room, possibly a school from what she could discern from the ages of most of those. The elder man standing at the small lectern however was what drew the most attention, simply because he had been talking as she had opened the door. Suddenly, a light came out of nowhere. "Draw weapons." She shouted, and raised her hands. A shield raised in front of them, and absorbed the spell.

"Swords, swords." She heard Aiden command, and the templars drew their weapons. Alyanna shield was absorbing a lot of these lights coming towards them. But the shield was wavering. When it suddenly fell, she threw forth some lightning, and it struck a man, who had been casting at her, and he was thrown backwards. She was preparing to raise another shield, and the templars were getting ready to charge when the elder spoke with authority.

"Stop this now!"

Dumbledore shouted and the spell stopped. One individual seemed to be in command of this small group. He looked around to Severus, who had been hit by her spell. He couldn't believe that he had decided to attack, especially when the group did not appear to be hostile. He would have to have a talk with him later. For now, he wanted to know who these people were, and what their intentions were. "I apologise for my teacher's attack. He has acted only in the interests of his students." He motioned to the children. "We mean you no harm." The woman looked at him, seeming surprised for the moment. She dropped the shield, and Dumbledore saw some injured people amongst them, and only now spotted the children. "Do any of you require aid?" He asked, and Pomfrey stood, and started to bustle over.

"If you can provide it." The woman said, looking at Pomfrey with suspicion.

"Pomfrey is our resident healer, and will be happy to accommodate you." He said, trying to reassure her. She seemed to agree, before turning to a man in armour.

"Aiden, I want you to take the injured, and five of your best templars, and make sure everyone is okay. We need any help provided, but do not hesitate to attack if provoked." The man, who Dumbledore now knew was Aiden, nodded, and ushered some of the others to follow him. Soon, they were leaving with Pomfrey, as was the unconscious figure of Severus Snape, levitating behind them.

"We will offer accommodation for you and your group. But if you will come down here in the morning madam, we shall start to discuss things. For now, please sit and eat." At his offer, a small round table appeared in the corner near the Hufflepuff table.

"Thank you elder, we accept your generous offer." The woman said formally, before leading her group to the table. Dumbledore headed back to the lectern.

"This evening has already been exciting enough, and dinner has been delayed to long. Eat." With this, the food appeared, and Dumbledore sat back down. This was shaping up to be a very interesting year.

At the Gryffindor table, Harry, Ron and Hermione were talking about what had just happened. Well, two were talking, and one was trying to be part of the conversation whilst eating and staring at the newcomers. "I want to know how they managed to get through the wards." Hermione said to Harry.

"Well, I don't think they know where they are themselves. They were surprised to see us here after all." Harry said, turning to Ron. "What about you Ron?"

"Who cares, they took down Snape. That's good enough for me." Harry chuckled with his friend, and Hermione shook her head in exasperation.


End file.
